Posts tagged “treaty”

The young woman brushes her metal detector over coarse, dry grass in a field near a primary school. Against the sound of children playing, the machine beeps as she searches for unexploded bombs dropped by American aircraft four decades ago.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions takes effect on Sunday, 1 August 2010, when it becomes binding international law in countries around the world. In dozens of countries, campaigners from the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) will join UN agencies, governments and international organisations in events celebrating the swift entry into force of the most significant disarmament and humanitarian treaty in over a decade.

The foreign ministers of Japan and Laos have agreed to urge more countries to sign the treaty to ban cluster bombs. Cluster bombs scatter hundreds of smaller munitions with high killing power, and leave behind many unexploded bomblets. Many unexploded bombs dropped by the United States during the Vietnam War remain in Laos, causing serious problems. Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada ended a 2-day visit to Laos on Sunday. He told Laotian Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulith that Japan attaches importance to the first meeting of signatories of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to be held in Laos in November. He said Japan will send a high-level delegation.